Donald Trump Fuels Rift With CIA Over Russian Hack

President-elect denounces the agency’s finding of Moscow’s role in the election

By Shane Harris, WSJ
Updated Dec. 11, 2016 8:29 p.m. ET

President-elect Donald Trump escalated a fight with the U.S. intelligence community on Sunday by denouncing its findings of Russian meddling in the U.S. election, setting up an extraordinary rupture between a soon-to-be president and his national-security establishment.

Mr. Trump, in a televised interview, denied the likelihood that Russia directed cyberattacks related to the U.S. election, despite contrary findings by the nation’s intelligence officials and rising concern among lawmakers, who want the allegations investigated.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Mr. Trump said, in a Fox News interview, of the Central Intelligence Agency’s recent assessment that Russia ordered the hacks to boost the Republican’s chances of winning the White House. Earlier, his transition team said the CIA had botched its analysis of Iraq’s program of weapons of mass destruction in 2003, implying the agency couldn’t be trusted now.

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